Hiking Piestewa Peak, Phoenix

Still feeling the gluttony of our Thanksgiving meal, we decided to hike off some calories at Piestewa Peak.

The mountain is the second tallest inside the Phoenix area. Only Camel Back is higher. Both are popular places for the fit and active.

Hubby and I, however, having done Camel Back before, weren't feeling quite as fit and active as that trail requires.

Piestewa Peak still gave us a workout, though. After days of lingering cloud cover, the sun finally shone clear and unblemished, heating up the hiking trail and bringing on a sweat.

Nevertheless, it felt good to be outside in shorts and short sleeves as we knew we would be heading back to Minnesota and it's cold winter winds.

This was my second time up Piestewa Peak. The last time I'd climbed this way, the trail had been called something different -- Squaw Peak.

The mountain's name, it seems, is in flux. While the city's official tourism info refers to it by the new name -- Piestewa Peak after the first soldier killed in the Iraq war -- all the park signage still uses the old name -- Squaw Peak.

Railroad Park in Scottsdale, AZ

Because I'm in the Phoenix area to visit family, and because there are little people in my family, we decided to take a morning trip to the Railroad Park in Scottsdale.

The park includes a playground, picnic areas, an old-time carousel and a miniature train that toots around it all.

The park was packed with families, which made sense given the holiday weekend. After all, we were there with our family, too.

It's free to get in and play on the slides or eat at the picnic pavilions.

Carousel rides cost a buck for big people, but are free for anyone under three. A ride on the miniature train costs $2 and is again free for those under three.

We were impressed that the train ride was longer than five minutes, and felt like we got a kinda of sneak behind the scene on this day: park employees were out in full force setting up a Christmas light display.

Looks like this might be a fun spot to bring young ones and get everyone in the holiday spirit ... but we'll be back home in Minnesota by then.

Fountain Hills' Fountain

I've been to Arizona many times. However, since I generally go to visit family, I never feel like I "get out" much.

One place I always get to, though, is Fountain Park, a pretty stretch of green grass and walking paths around a sizable lake with a fountain in the middle. Fountain Park is in the middle of Fountain Hills, a town northeast of Phoenix.

According to area tourism brochures, Fountain Hills is home to the tallest, year-round-operating fountain in the world.

This fountain shoots a 560-foot stream of water into the sky 12 times a day. It goes off every hour on the hour between 10 am and 9 pm.

At its peak, the spray of water is five times taller than the Washington Monument.

On St. Patrick's Day, they fill the fountain with green dye and it shoots an emerald spray into the air at noon. But I've never seen this. The one time I was here on St. Paddy's Day, it rained.

At any rate, the park is a nice place to take a dog for a walk, feed stale bread the hordes of ducks, play a game of frisbee golf or take young kids to play.

There's even a small row of shops on one end where you can find a couple of restaurants with outdoor seating, a coffee shop and wine bar with Friday and Saturday night entertainment. At all of these places, spots facing the fountain always fill up first.

Crossing Desert Sands

When I got this fortune last week, I was excited. Did it mean I would soon be going to Africa? A safari perhaps?

Or maybe to Mexico? A getaway to Cabo? I've been logging too many hours on the keyboard recently. Article assignment after article assignment. A beach vacation would be nice.

But no and no. It's Arizona instead.

How could I have forgotten all about my trip to Arizona for the Thanksgiving holiday? I was so busy spinning foreign desert locations that I totally blanked on my upcoming calendar and scheduled flight to the Sonora.

In fact, it wasn't until I started to think about packing last night that I made the connection at all to my fortune cookie.

But life is like that. We forget to see what's right in front of us because we're too busy dreaming up future adventures. What a timely reminder as I head into these days of gratitude.

Dog Run

I attended an author event last night.

Photographer Michael Crouser was in town promoting his new book, Dog Run.

The book is a coffee table book of black and white photographs of dogs that he captured at dog parks.

Because dogs tend to be in constant motion at a dog park, these aren't cuddly cute pictures of little purse pups. Instead, these pictures are all about movement and play.

Being the dog fanatic that I am, I found this book to be very cool. I especially like the really tight shots that show simply a dog's muzzle or tail.

And -- bonus -- Crouser is originally from the Twin Cities. He lives in Brooklyn now, but swings back through Minnesota often. And actually, about half the pictures in the book were taken at a dog park near Minneapolis' Lake of the Isles. The rest were taken at a dog park in Manhattan.

During the Q and A, someone asked him whether or not, after spending so much time in dog parks, he had picked up on any differences between dog owners in the two states.

Yes, he said. The New York dog owners tried to shoo him off. The didn't like that he was taking pictures of their dogs. Some even got really in his face and tried to bully him away.

The Minneapolis dog owners, on the other hand, would approach him, ask if their dog was going to be in the paper, offer to spell their dog's name and then drag him around to meet their second dog so he could get a shot of that one, too.

That response got a round of chuckles from the audience. Could we Minnesotans -- or the New Yorkers for that matter -- get any more stereotypical?

Trying Hard to Stay Up to Speed

Hectic times here in freelancing land.

A local paper has kept me busy with an assignment each week for the past five weeks. Plus there are other articles I've been working on that haven't yet been released.

Lately my head is spinning with the stories of other people, so much so that they are crowding out my own tales I have to tell. I haven't had much time or space to focus on my own writing, which tends to leave me irritable and anxious.

Someday, I keep on thinking, someday I will start saying "no" to all these assignments and just focus on my own stuff. I've been saying this, though, for several years.

It's the familiar push and pull of the freelancing life ... taking every story when it comes up for fear that the pipeline will slow and then stop and then I'll be out of luck. After all, one must have some money coming in.

At any rate, for those who are interested, here are some links to my recent stuff:

Learning to Sell

Kids Debate the Candidates

Bushaway's Birthday

Fund-raising Fair Trade Style

Perfect Scores

Feeling Hopeful ...